The Principles of Reasoning Deduction
by BackwardEDGE
Summary: As a boy he knew of seventy three ways in which he could kill a grown man. Eight years on and the Kvatch City Guard Investigator knows of two hundred and forty six, period. From the bloodied building blocks of his youth to the crimson slicked profession of his manhood - how a boy becomes a monster, and a monster, a man.
1. Prologue: He gets it from his father

**-[|**** The Principles of Reasoning Deduction ****|]-**

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_As a boy he knew of seventy three ways in which he could kill a grown man. Eight years on and the Kvatch City Guard Investigator knows of two hundred and forty six, period. From the bloodied building blocks of his youth to the crimson slicked profession of his manhood - how a boy becomes a monster, and a monster, a man._

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**Disclaimer:**  
TES: Oblivion related characters and content all belong to Bethesda. Avis and Kat belong to me, so, unless you want to be missing fingers...

**Authors Note:**

Welp. Here we go _agaaaaaaaiiiin_~

Much like it's original, this version of TRoPD is just as gruesome, horrifying and generally all around psychopathic, therefore it will be knocked up to an M pretty early on. The prologue should be pretty decent for the sake of everyone and everything - but if the description wasn't enough of a warning, consider this;

If you don't like blood, guts, violence of anything bloody or gruesome - this fic is NOT for you. I don't believe in the whole "You gotta be eighteen or older, lies lies lies" stuff, but if you aren't comfortable with it, I quite simply wouldn't recommend it. I don't want to go upsetting people.

Honest!

Well... enjoy, I guess. Please remember to keep all arms inside the carriage at all times, fasten your seatbelt and enjoy the ride. The story begins 'in media res', or in laymans terms, near the end of the story - and kiddes? Cover your eyes, because thar be monsters in these lands.

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|** Part I : **Bloodline |

|** Prologue : **He gets it from his father |

Although he would prefer not to, he'll recall the day he met his Bodyguard for some years to come, in perfectly clarity despite the gravity of the situation. Sat in the pews of the Chapel of Akatosh while a handful of his friends slowly die in the rooms surrounding him. He was with them when it happened and despite it all, the mass slaughter, the sheer bloody violence, he suffered not a scratch.

Part of him wishes that he was dying with them - he certainly deserves it.

It's odd though, he thinks, how people both defecate and fornicate all in one building. He's never been massively religious, especially not recently - far from it, but he doesn't find himself particularly surprised when he brings his hands up and proceeds to bow his head in silent prayer. He knows how; he grew up not far from here, he attended services with his father, and well, what else can he do? What could he possibly do to help those he unintentionally doomed?

He's not in a fantastic way either, though he's hardly in a position to complain. Twenty three years next winter, practically on the threshold of life and yet he's completely lost, unemployed and to make matters all the better, Kvatch is far more... _different_ then he last remembers it. What has he got to his name? A few years of Mage's Guild education and a knack for Conjuration. It's not much, but before now, it was everything he ever needed. So praying the the gods he's previously denied for the past half a decade seems like a small, but never the less good step in the right direction.

Or, well. It had seemed like a good idea at the time.

"Well... that's a pitiful sight and a fetching half."

Letting his jaw go slack, he jerks his head around to see the man- _well_, he's hardly a man at this point. He's a boy if anything at this current time. Though, that boy who speaks these words will one day become his impromptu Bodyguard, one of his closest confidants. Despite his wining and his complaining, that boy will stick by his side through the worst of it, believe it or not... but, for now, he's none of these things. At this current moment in time, the boy is just a stranger wearing an unfamiliar face from the past. A stranger in a Kvatch City Guard uniform, a man caught in a boy's skin, with an impeccably shaved chin and a really bad attitude to boot. There's blood on the left sleeve of his uniform and his nose is completely busted, crimson colours the bridge of his nose, smearing across towards his right cheekbone. His hands are covered in it too. Soaked.

Although he doesn't know it yet, it's a sight he'll come to get used to. You can only expect so much from Aurelius, after all.

"Praying is just some form of acquiescence that're too damn pathetic to do anything for them yourself." The Investigator says, dully and clinically, straight to the point with a clipped merciless bite. He walks forwards with an air of casual disinterest, one eyebrow ticking upwards when he scowls. Of course, the Investigator is not always being unnecessarily cruel. It's just that he never needed to understand the gravity behind what he says, therefore never developed much empathy as a direct result. How could he? The Investigator raised himself, almost. He's not a lost case entirely; give the boy a few years and he'll learn the consequences. Even then, it would be a miracle if he decided to care about it either way.

He knows this from bitter experience.

But he doesn't. Not yet anyway. So he responds the same way as any other decent person would.

Astounded, or perhaps just disgusted, he shifts to glare at the Investigator properly "And who are you to judge?" he nigh on spits, because there are people sick and dying and everything in between around them, and here the boy stands, all self righteousness with a look of firm indifference plastered all-over his uneven adolescent face. At this point, he's actually nothing special. He has the markings of handsomeness, granted, the signs of prominent cheekbones and a strong jaw - but aside from that, he's nothing to pause over. Dark haired, a good amount of it at on the left side is disturbed and coarse. When he looks harder at the odd parting, he realises that the roots are red and matted with a fresh abrasion.

Someone took a good shot at him, but that amber eyed gaze doesn't seem to care either way. There's nothing special about him outwardly, but he's entirely unique.

Men of his lineage often will be.

"I am merely stating" he says, tone even and utterly void of anything even remotely compassionate "That it will not work. So you might as well not." The Investigator stares at him for a few moments, considering his gaze and then huffs "S'not that bad, you welp." and with that, his calculative gaze locks onto his face with attentive force "It's just blood."

It's just blood. It's just pain. It's not just pain. It's just life. Just death. Just everything, and just nothing.

Although the reasonably intelligent part of his mind decides against it, he turns towards a rather harassed looking brother and indicates towards the Investigator "Can I get a bowl and some cloth?" The Investigator in turn looks at him with thinly veiled curiosity, which is all the better, because - now, he knows that if anyone was to get his full attention... it doesn't end well. Never does. As he turns back to look at him, he begins to wonder if the smugness is just a permanent dent in his face "Don't get me wrong, I'm just a good person."

The Investigator doesn't do anything, doesn't blink, doesn't move. Just stares at him like he's some kind of enigma.

A few minutes of this pass, three eventually, before he grunts and indicates for the boy to sit down. He does, walking further along with that same expression of mild petulance. It's a very controlled series of motions, all of his steps are completely calculated and the sheer intensity of his gaze brings to light the genius pent up inside his head. As he dips the cloth into the bowl and hesitantly presses it to his skull, there is nothing either, not so much as a complaint, even when he deliberately presses down too hard. Placing his other hand against the back of the Investigator's head, he notices that the boy's hair is very sticky, so he takes pulls it away. His palm comes away red.

"You've had some form of medical training." The Investigator states, unblinking "A healer, I presume. Though with little restoration experience... leaves me to believe you're a mage of a different calibre. Destruction perhaps? Or was it Conjuration?"

"I'm not in the mood for small talk."

"I don't care."

Expecting some kind of conflict, he looks straight at the Investigator, but the boy isn't looking at him anymore. His fiery amber gaze is locked on the bloody red cloth dangling just over his brow. As he continues to work on the wound, a few blessed moments pass in silence, or rather, the Investigator keeps his mouth shut, leaving nothing but the sound of water and the sounds of wet cloth against skin. He finds himself thinking back. Twenty three years of age, twenty three hours without sleep, twenty three minutes until his friends pass away, twenty three seconds until his life changes forever.

Of course, he doesn't know that - the Investigator tells him, two years and three months from this very day exactly. Aurelius marks the anniversaries of things with the fervour of a man possessed. In place of the scars, he thinks. It's a way for him to validate those fragile links to his humanity that he, like a few, blessedly _present_, people so desperately try to cultivate.

The Investigator smiles a mad, wide grin and moves toward him slightly, scanning his face with an almost cruel sense of observation.

"Wanna know something good?"

"No, I don't." He grunts in the way of reply, looking away slowly and instead, stares determinedly at a pillar towards his left. Of course, the Investigator doesn't take the sodding hint. He never does.

He just chuckles, darkly.

"I've just lost my neighbour."

The words that come out of the boy's mouth are cold, empty - but while this is in no way strange, considering the level of disinterested detachment - there is something _else_ in those words. Something very, very wrong. So he turns his head again to find that they are practically nose to nose. The most he can do is stare in this position, but some part of him manages to licks his bottom lip unconsciously "Well, that was rather careless of you." He eventually spits out, guardedly. He's not sure where this is going. Nor does he want to know.

At this, the Investigator suddenly bursts out laughing, very nearly kicking the bowl off the pew and sending the bloodied cloth from out of his hands with a sharp smack. It goes flying, only to rest in a sad rejected pile "No." He moves back then, suddenly expressionless. Thinking. Calculating. He narrows his eyes into slits and his voice lowers into something bank and heavy. And quiet, shushed "I killed him."

Silence.

"Stabbed him between the neck and the shoulder, before slitting his throat with his own butter knife. I dumped his corpse in the moat by the side of the castle." He smiles, as if it's some sort of notifiable achievement "He had a rather unconventional relationship with his step-daughter, if it's any consolation."

With this - all of this, he realises that this meeting was so much more treacherous then originally perceived. The Investigator knew this all along, he often does. For when it comes to the varying degrees of cold calculation - he will always know. The world is his toybox, his little experiment and like the wretched, calculating bastard he is, he knows exactly how much it takes to topple, how long before he steps over the line... but, like a boy with a spyglass he'll push it all to a new limit, to a new chapter of observation.

And, it all starts with messing with a man who doesn't know he's being messed around with.

"So, what're gonna do now, Pretty Boy?"

Martin never stood a chance.


	2. Break - Part One : Bloodline

**-[|**** The Principles of Reasoning Deduction ****|]-**

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|** Part I : **Bloodline |

"His business is murder - but now, it's personal."

[]

When a well connected Skooma dealer is found dead in his cell the morning he is to be executed, difficult questions begin to arise. The man has been murdered, a slit throat being the cause of death and what little evidence remains has unearthed a long-hidden horror, dragging a particular Imperial Watchman back to a past he swore he had buried for good, leading him into a dark place where all evil forces dwell.

Because the secrets that doomed his mother two years earlier remain alive and lethal - and disturbing them could cost him much more then he ever previously considered.

Aurelius Avis is seventeen, pretty fixated on the world around him, a social degenerate and a genius.

He's also one of the most brilliant Imperial Watch Investigators in recent history.

[Part One of Three]


	3. PI - CI : The Beginning of the End

**-[|**** The Principles of Reasoning Deduction ****|]-**

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|** Part I : **Bloodline |

|** Chapter One : **The Beginning of the End |

It's interesting to note that people have a tendency to forget that murderers, killers, assassins - the takers of lives, are _people_. They were born people and generally, they will die people. Aside from a the differences with race and genetic elements, they are all the same. There is little to differentiate them by. Murderers, rapists, all these lowlife specks of waste, they are people - and people, are animals. They can wear all the clothes they want, claim to hold the ability to reason, but it matters little. It's a simple fact; People are animals.

Living, breathing, horrible pointless animals.

The thing about these so called degenerates, the evildoers that create the thrum of any city night, is that once you get a reference - once you've taken them apart and seen how they work, crawl underneath their skin. They are all the same. Very much like children, they are angry and fragile. He should know, for after five separate observations, he knows how fragile a youth can be. Indeed, he understands. Yet despite having come to have learnt this fact himself, through his own means, it hardly affects anything. He's not some sightless religious zealot, preaching undying forgiveness. He spends his time understanding the criminal elements that plague Cyrodiil because he believes that most, if not all, kill for a reason. Survival is a big theme, fear, anger, envy, lust - if it's one of the big seven, it's an excuse.

Revenge - he's seen that too, but he doesn't believe in revenge.

Revenge is a form of pride.

He doesn't kill for pride. Why should he? What would be the point in that?

He's not some story-book vigilante, he's not one of the good guys. His job description may suggest it, but he's not here to go around cleaning up cities or saving kidnapped children - he's a murderer himself, in fact, he's probably killed enough people to put him on the same level as those he frequently locks behind bars. A death sentence, defiantly. Despite the similar... method of operations, he does not feel sorry for them either - perhaps some part of him pities them, if he should ever come to understand how such an emotional response _worked_. He knows enough about it however to know that appreciating someone's motivations and condemning them are not the same.

Indeed, he only cares about why they do it it makes his job much easier. Skip a step, because he knows the game. He's been playing it long enough.

Out of everyone, he's hardly one of preach mortality - and he wont, for that matter. It's a waste of air and he doesn't wish to go around participating in anything borderlining on the unnecessary. He has killed dozens in the name of understanding, of learning, of developing. The fact is it doesn't matter what uniform he happens to wear; if he's working under the banner of the Imperial Watch or the Kvatch City Guard, he's not better then those waiting to be hanged for the murder of children. Possibly, he's even worse. Truthfully he doesn't enjoy being on the same level of that _scum_, but he's already soaked so deep in sin that he's practically saturated. He can't hide the way his palms are permanently dyed red with the blood of victim after victim, experiment after experiment.

Scum or no however, he knows - at a significant push... _understands_.

When the so called, 'Law Abiding Citizen' looks at those convicted of murder, they do not look them in the eyes and see themselves on a weaker day. They shun them, they call them monsters and then continue to go on with their daily lives, content that the victims when't _their_ family, or _their_ friends. They go around believing that the murderers are 'those' people and that they are 'these' people - that there is nothing they have in common. Most of the time they cannot comprehend them being someone else's lover, or someone else's child, someone else's friend.

Because they are monsters.

But, honestly. They haven't even seen the real monsters. Not yet.

And they never will; because why would an Investigator, a man who goes out of his way to put the criminals behind bars, be a criminal himself? How could that happen? What happened to the good guys, the holier then thou heroes?

The difference between him and them, is that they kill for a reason. They kill in response to something else and some-way, somehow they could justify it, no matter how sick it sounds. He, the Investigator, the Boy - the Monster. He doesn't. He kills for the same reason he would toss a apple or go swimming - because it passes time, because it is pointless and purposeless and it brings him little joy in the slightest. There is no particular lust in him. The only inherit need he has is to investigate, to understand and he can do that without killing people. Indeed, he has done so in the past quite well. No. He doesn't kill for a reason, per say.

Aurelius Avis kills because if the people around him are too fetching blind, stupid and all around thick-skulled to look down from their beloved moral high ground, then he's not going to educate them. He's got much more important things to be doing, quite frankly, why should he even bother to correct them? They've done nothing for him before.

It's like murder. Often pointless, defiantly boring and rather unnecessary.

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**-[|**** The Principles of Reasoning Deduction ****|]-**

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One of the first things he had been told, by some middle aged woman with shaking fingers and coarse words, was that who you once were does not necessarily dictate who you will be in the future, that what you did in the past will not prove what is to come. People change as the situation changes. You never stay the same.

For Aurelius Avis, it never quite... _worked_... that way.

He watches it silently as it continues the scuttle around on the floorboards beside his Momma's chair, he's been doing so for the better part of the morning. Through under the sparely placed, barren furniture, across the cracks, it weaves in and out with it's own private agenda - it pays no attention to him, but the baby watches intensely. He born for this; observing and even at this age, sat on the floor, a chubby little Goliath in fourth-hand baby clothes with sticky fingers, he does so well. He watches the spider, large amber eyes unblinking. His Momma does not stir in the slightest, she's been entertaining the Kvatch men all night and now she is exhausted. So, with his Momma asleep and therefore not paying any attention to him, little Aurelius decided to pay his own attention to the spider instead. It's only fair, after all.

For what feels like a long time, he observers this little unsuspecting creature as it makes away across the floor for the fifth time in a row. Aurelius doesn't know what it's doing and once it gets close enough, he eventually becomes displeased with it, blinking and without warning, slams a pudgy little fist down to slam it flat. It's over, that's that and now he finds himself with nothing to do.

Interesting, how such small murders foreshadow a life of dripping bloodshed.

The sound of his tiny hand impacting against the floorboards startles his Momma awake, but not for any specific parental reason, she seems to assume that her son's outburst had been a knock at the door, like when the guardsmen come in demanding tax or old women in flowing robes come in demanding that she feeds and washes her son to the acceptable degree. She groans when she realises that it's none of these things, still not looking at her son as she snorts, then quivers and wipes the drool from her bottom lip with a flick of her finger.

When he turns his head to look at her, she notices.

"Oh." Looking down at her tiny offspring - because he is hers, and only hers. That's the way it is. That's the way it will be for fifteen years. "Oh, my bab-ey, bab-ey." She slides off the table slowly and begins to press down the front of her dress slowly, before tucking a blonde curl around her ear. He did not inherit her hair colour. She sighs when she looks out past the window. "It'll always be just you, Bab-ey." and with that, she smiles with shaking lips and pats him sloppily on the head, which he dislikes.

In the future, a lot of people will often say that Aurelius really aught to have been more thankful for all that his Momma had done for him. How that, even though she was clearly sick of mind and health, she continued to raise a child - a bastard, no less - by hand. Of course, Aurelius being Aurelius, he would find amusement in such a statement, when he gets old enough to determine just how amusement is supposed to work in the conversational fashion. Having known her to have a very heavy hand, of which often came into contact with his backside, yes, you could very well say that Aurelius was indeed raised by hand.

His Momma of course never hit him any more then most parents would have, of course, but she never really did any normal things either. She didn't bother to lock the cupboards or raise her voice or shop for sweet things or knit or do anything similar to what the other boy's and girl's Mommas do. She was just... _there_, sometimes alone and sometimes with strangers, but there nonetheless. Her son did little aside form sitting and starting at things all day, never often cried, never babbled or smiled. For a long period of time, she thought him dumb, but oh, Aurelius soon began to know better.

When he learns to walk, by watching and coping his mother and her guests, alone, all by himself, he finally manages to actually catch one of the spiders that eluded him in his crawling hunts. It's much more intriguing them mere squashing, and he cups it carefully in a palm-cage, looking up to see if his Momma was there. She's ordering things, papers, on the kitchen table, so he goes back to the spider and considers its frantic flailing of tiny limbs with mild interest. He mutters something and she looks up towards him, crouched down and peering into his hands.

"Whatchoo' got there, bab-ey?" his Momma asks, looking towards the items on the table again and wincing when her finger catches on one of them, swearing.

"Spider." He mutters, ignoring her sudden cry out and shifting one hand to start tugging at one of it's legs until it comes splintering off in a tear of tiny hairy muscles. The spider starts to spasm maniacally, like it's screaming with it's body, as spiders don't seem to have mouths or teeth or even tongues. At least, he doesn't think they do.

"That's lovely," she says without meaning it, looking at her hand making a face "What're gonna' do with it?"

"Kill it."

She's not looking at him, so she doesn't hear him say it.

With a premature look of concentration, he plucks off another leg and tells the spider, quite bluntly, that it's unfair for her to have eight legs while every other insect must make do with six. The squirming creature seems to argue, so he then tells her that she may have killed lots of flies, but so has he, and he can kill spiders like her just as easily.

She doesn't seem to care after that, so he frowns, and squashes her.

He's getting pretty bored with squashing.

Getting up to stand his Momma leaves the house on impulse to get something for her hand, leaving him alone. Like usual.

A few weeks later, the items on the table are gone and they have new clothes and better food and his Momma sits at the table again. "I am starting to do some wondering, Bab-ey." She laments at some point while he's toddling around the one bedroomed house on a concentrated hunting mission. "If you don't start talking all proper soon, the only thing yo' poor Momma is gonna get is gonna be the men, the men and only the men." After not even a glance from her son, she turns around to toss the foul smelling alcohol bottles out the front door and out into the soggy grass, sniffing as she does so. A guard shouts, but otherwise doesn't make an effort to do anything.

Not many people visit this part of town, really. So nobody is that bothered what you see. Kvatch is a city of many faces, he knows more then anyone.

The bottles are soon replaced by days end at any rate.

It's not that she was a bad Momma, because she wasn't - she just wan't a very good one either. Nor did she stick around long enough to show him what he needed to know to be a good Momma. For those short few years, he was not interested in he, he had what he needed in the form of rocks and old books. Most often, they walked the uneasy tango in between like and dislike, he being him, she being her. One time, she tells him that he's too much like his Dadda. Aurelius doesn't take much of a notice. She says all sorts when she's drunk.

He's not old enough to realise how significant such a statement was.

Despite claiming him to be the Bastard son of a Bastard of man, she never minded when it came to being his Momma, really. She was attentive when it came to the food on the table and the cold water in the bucket. She tucked him and scrubbed him and fed him dutifully and he would do his own thing when she wasn't, she defended him from the constant streams of visitors and praised him when he got along with them. He would chase down smaller creatures to learn from, observe people through the cracks in the doorway and the slip in between the curtains when they were busy, out of sight and out of mind.

"So, what have you there, Bab-ey?" She asks one day, her chin propped up in a sober palm.

"Books, Momma."

She had smiled at that, grinning insanely up at the low ceiling. "I always' had wanted to be a scholar."

She had wanted to be a dancer, and a poet and a sailor too. But no, she was his Momma and most nights, a thirty minute lover. "So, where did you get them from?"

He don't tell her, but merely suggests that becoming a scholar might be a good idea - suggests that's what he wants to be when he's grown up and it's true, in some respect. He thirsts to know, why things are as they seem and why they aren't, why people do some things and others don't. Why he breathes, why he speaks, why he pumps out blood, why the people at the temple can make his cuts heal without bandages and stitches. He wants to know. So he takes books from odd places, it's not stealing, not in his mind, because he never understands nor cares why they aren't his to begin with.

Slim books with fake pictures and uninteresting storylines, books as big as his head with information of all stripes, of all calibres. Diagrams that show him, descriptions that tell him. He learns not out of social necessity but out of primal need. Sometimes he doesn't know what the words mean, or even what they say full stop. When he came across these big, confusing words, for the first time in his life, Aurelius felt overwhelmed. He asked his Momma, but she didn't know either and he started to feel almost frantic. Like the way he sometimes felt when he wanted to talk to one of the guards or the healers or someone but he was unsure of what to actually say.

He does pluck up the courage however, eventually.

"I don't know if I can read these words..." he began. He still wasn't sure how he could be expected to know terms that he hadn't even read before, or ever even heard someone use.

The Sister of Akatosh he had asked turned, before taking the book in his outstretched hand without so much as pause. She looks at the title inked on the spine and her eyebrows shoot up. "Well..." she said uneasily, "what is it that scholar's do when they don't know something?"

Of course, she was right.

Cutting the words down, he asked for the definitions and after a series of half clipped explanations from his mother, mashed them together in his head. It wasn't perfect, but it gave him some indication of what they meant. He sat on his stool in the back corner of his house, swinging his legs, as he pushed through the complicated sentences, trying to use the terms he did know to explain the ones he didn't. The further he gets, the more books he picks up, the more the world slowly begins to unveil. When his Momma is busy and the weather is good, he wanders out back and picks certain plants from the garden behind the Mages' Guild place. Learns what does what and what doesn't, what smells and what doesn't.

What kills, and what doesn't.

Most importantly however, Aurelius learns to add up the little things, the small, usually uninteresting facts and build them up to discover hidden truths. People like to find the means to an end, solving ordinary puzzles like what to buy and what to wear, while Aurelius becomes obsessed with the means, rather then actually getting to the end. The way the guards glance at him as he passes, the way Jules Severus smirks at him, they all mean things. It doesn't take him long to realise that the guards glance at him because they are seeing his Momma and Jules smirks because he has the general intelligence of a retarded pot plant. Soon, he learns what means shame and what means anger, what means surprise and what means shock. It becomes his one advantage.

He watches the world impassively as it goes by, the taller he gets, the more he sees and the more he understands. People come, people go and Aurelius Avis remains as he was beforehand. Mildly displeased and most certainly unfazed.

"Hey, hey whoreboy!"

Aurelius doesn't even bother to look up. He's busy watching as the subdued cat below him breathes, slow and steady, cradled in the long grass behind the chapel like an infant. He's not going to kill it, of course. He's learning how often hearts beat, how often something is to breathe without suffocating. To kill it would be downright pointless.

The boys surrounding however... oh _they_ are a different matter entirely.

He frowns, grime slicked hands clasping his bent knees as he observes. The boys are nothing but a small annoyance to him, the sons of common day labourers. Very boring. But an annoyance is an annoyance at the end of the day.

"My Momma says your Momma goes around disgracing the Nine by bedding every man in town." Jules spits his ugly, demented little face scrunching up when Aurelius does not bother to react. The would be tormentor sends his foot into Aurelius' upper right ribs and he reluctantly snaps his gaze to that of the older boy, rolling his eyes lazily as he does so. The other two boys are nervous however, because Aurelius is rumoured to torture animals and beat the homeless with rocks. His eyes are scary too, it looks like they are burning. With hate, with madness.

With genius.

In order to reassure his backup, Jules smirks.

"Is that true, huh, whoreboy? Look, he's so scared he aint even gonna speak to us."

Aurelius stands upright, turning and stares down the slightly older bow. He stares at his neck, before looking down at the cat. Surely, a human needs to breathe as often as a cat does? Cocking his head to the side, he turns to stare unblinking at Jules.

"Hey, welp. My Dadda's gone to join the Legion to fight the fetchin' mer. Where's your Dadda, huh?"

Jules leans in. It's a mistake.

"Don't you have a Dadda, Aur-"

_CRACK._

Jules did not see the rock in Aurelius' hand, never mind predict that the other boy would actually hit him. With the force of his hit, he feels the ivory bone beneath shatter and just as he brings to pull the makeshift weapon away, the other boys sprint of rapidly, their legs carrying them away at speeds he does not observe nor care for. Jules is not dead, Aurelius has since learn't where and where not to hit with that amount of force. He's hit him hard enough to make the ugly little gremlin fall over. Nothing else.

Aurelius needs him alive, after all, he could hit a lot harder if he had wanted to.

Moving around to slam his hands down against Jules' throat, Aurelius falls down onto his knees and pushes all of his weight against the other boy's windpipe. He watches eagerly during what must be the asphyxiation, the suffocation. He wonders if this is typical of any human, of any mer - or perhaps it's just Jules. Perhaps it is everyone and everything, perhaps not. There is only one way to find out, and he realises this with a dull shake of his head. He has a lot of work to do.

A _lot_ of work.

Skip a good few years into the future, and rough, calloused hands will often come and slam down on many a person's throat, but now, these hands are slim and young. Aurelius is twelve years of age and each years marks a milestone of wonder, of understanding. Young they may be, but they still come with the very same intent backed with sheer, merciless determination. Jules of course does not know intent, he knows only fear and other, stupid little emotions. His eyes dart about in fanatic desperation, searching for any escape. Aurelius sees none, he made sure of _that_ before he even attempted to suffocate the imbecile. The bigger boy becomes submissive to mindless panic, the convulses take dominance. His breaths lessen and fade, and Aurelius can only tilt his head when Jules' eye stop darting about. He's no longer struggling.

Dissatisfaction takes hold soon afterwards and Aurelius rises, releasing his viced grip and scowling hard. He needs to ponder on this, but he does glance back at the fallen boy, who is spluttering and choking like a demented fish.

"No." He says to the boy's earlier question, his tone is bored, monotone and turns towards the cat, scooping it up. He'll continue on elsewhere.

When he returns home, he doesn't ask his Momma. He doesn't want to know where is Dadda is, or even _who_ his Dadda is. He's not particularly interested.

Not yet.

A week after he turns fifteen however, he walks in after a fight in the local tavern to find his Momma dead. Her death, honestly, was very much like her life; uneventful, undignified and most certainly overlooked. It's a gruesome murder, yes, but it's also expected. Of course it's expected, she lets strange men into her home. Aurelius pauses in the doorway, mouth slightly agape and amber eyes wide. Then he frowns, glancing at the old, battered pocketwatch he took from the butcher's son last month. It's not even past noon. Glancing over his shoulder, he shuts the door behind him walking towards the corpse with a air of mild interest.

Across her throat is an angular, linear cut and that is clearly the cause of death. Aurelius examines it for some time. Her head is wrenched backwards over her chair, blood seeping into the pours floorboards, streaming down her neck and pooling on her collarbones. Her face is expressionless, there is no shock, no surprise. Walking around her slowly, he realises that the murderer must have come in through the window, crept up on her, grabbed her hair and proceeded to kill. The murderer is also left handed, well practiced - and he was wearing gloves. It's because he is indifferent in all things that he merely notes this information with a small noise and an abruptly turns on a heel. So he goes and tells the guards. Someone murdered his Momma.

Someone murdered his Momma. A regular old horror, one experience on top of another. How dull.

The investigation lasts three days, and it's during this time that Aurelius Avis decides what he is to do next. Through grieving once family friends and through cold sympathy and pointless words, he spends the better of the next month and a half looking into who could be his Dadda. It's not much, speculations and uninteresting rumours. Someone says he's the son of some horrible Deadric Prince, so he punches them so hard in the solar plexus that they vomit in retaliation. It comes slowly, because nobody really spent much time getting to know him nor his Momma. They are strangers wearing unfamiliar faces. After awhile however, he finds out what he wants to know. Because Aurelius knows that he will get what he wants in the end. He finds out a where the Man who might be his Dadda rode from.

The house wasn't theirs, some form of lower-grade councilman tells him. So he sells the stuff in it, pausing when he gets to the pathetic little cake she had bought him from the baker's for his birthday. It's covered in sweet things. He hates sweet things. So he doesn't bother with it, merely drops it in front of one of the homeless people down the street. His last days in Kvatch are spent taking a series of worn travelling clothes from numerous stalls, as well as a pair of solid boots and a crappy iron shortsword. One of the owners catches him, so Aurelius just drops the shortsword and eyes the male, before competently destroying the man with three solid blows in quick succession. He's seen how the Fighter's Guild lot fight before. It's not that hard.

"I won't be back." He says, shrugging, before picking up the sword again and walking on. The unconscious man's dog follows him, almost mournfully, and Aurelius lets it. It bites people when he tells it too, which is easier then stabbing someone, so he decided to tolerate it for the time being. He leaves Kvatch the following afternoon, his hair slicked back, to go searching for his Dadda.

Only because it seems like the logical thing to do. If he where normal.

If.

But when he gets there, everything is much more different then to what he is used to. Winter has become spring, and the greatest city in Cyrodiil, centre of the Empire, birthplace of the Legion; the Imperial City is rich, fast, dirty and exiting. Everywhere he looks, something is being built or torn down to be re-built, bigger and better. Houses, the rooftop of the Arena, manors, massive archways and people, palm readers huddled near street corners, shops-keepers selling items, guardsmen thundering up and down through crowds of civilians on duty. Everyone has something to do, somewhere to go a fortune to make of break.

Then someone tries to take the pocketwatch out of his jacket and Aurelius spins around, slamming the heel of his palm into the theif's throat, before dislocating the man's shoulder as he slams him into the wall. This was a rather common occurrence back in Kvatch and it's here, stood over the crippled theif that he realises what he's going to do next. The revelation is somewhat exiting and Aurelius pulls up the thief with a rare, genuine grin.

"Steal from me again, and I'll tear out your windpipe. Do you understand?"

It's because of this new found purpose that Aurelius lets him leave. He's going to be very busy indeed.

The next month and a half is rather interesting, to say the least. He is a ghost. A non-person breaking himself down the foundations then building it back up brick by blood-stained brick. He clears out nearly every small time-gang in the Waterfront district. Then proceeds to bust and decimate a few Skooma rings. Picked off a few small fry scum. Stolen an accumulative sum of around one hundred gold pieces of a bunch of better established thieves. It has a lot of the guard stumped. The better he got, the more he upped the game. Five weeks in and he goes after a few high-flyers, knocking out a councilman who likes to scam vulnerable people, before leaving him tied to a chair in the middle of the Talos Plaza district with all the necessary evidence stacked beside him. A few of them he had to kill. Their deaths were quick and relatively painless, but its no excuse. Quite frankly it was easier.

Then it all goes southward, he's looking into who may be responsible for a series of homicides, skulking around the main victim's home when one of the doors is suddenly beaten in. Before he can even move, five Imperial Watchmen come thundering inside. Their leader is pretty easy to identify, because the man is dressed from head to toe in solid, Imperial armour, decorated with gold flourishes and is vastly different from the four other men. He carries himself different and Aurelius swears inwardly when he realises that said man is a captain.

Aurelius just purses his lips. Well. It was going to happen eventually, he supposes, and with that he casually raises his hands, sighing fitfully.

"Aurelius Avis." The leader full on grins, removing his helmet and propping it under one arm. "You," He points at him, shaking his head with either good humour or an ample amount of relief. "are very difficult to track down."

He stares at the captain, mouth agape in an expression of rare shock. Out of all the possible scenarios, this one was... well, nigh on comprehensible. He made _sure_ nobody was able to trace it all back to him.

"I have three warrants with your name on it." The captain walks forwards, firm and stands just short of the younger man. "Two of them are for immediate arrest, the other is essentially a kill order. Now, I'm willing to make those all go away... but I have a list of criteria." Leaning forwards, the Imperial Captain narrows his eyes, practically nose to nose with Aurelius. "The first, is that you tell me who is responsible for this..." He waves his hand across the expanse of the house for emphasis. "_Mess_, and the other, slightly more unusual requirement, is that we put you in a uniform - where you belong. No arguing, no struggling - the way I see it, you have nothing to lose anymore. People like me either want your talent, or would rather you be dead in fear of competition."

Eyeing one of the guardsmen as he plays with the hilt of his sword, Aurelius deflates. Well, he'd like to take an option that did not involve _death_, for once. He didn't exactly fight tooth and nail three weeks ago to just die now. He couldn't give the old geezer the satisfaction. Besides, he had to put his education to some good use - and the Legion... well, he'd be protected. He'd be able to do much more, an easier access to resources.

He had nothing to think about. If he could get away with it, well, Aurelius will just take what he can get.

"Well, shit. Count me in boss."

It felt much like writing your own funeral obituary.


	4. PI - CII : Arvyn Dren

**-[|**** The Principles of Reasoning Deduction ****|]-**

* * *

**Author's Note:**  
So I promised you lot that I would update more, I planned it all out - it was ready, all was good and dandy.

Then I got floored by a kidney infection.

I don't know if this was fate kicking me metaphorically in the balls or what, but worry no more - I'm back, with chapters to make up for it. I don't expect any further problems, at any rate so...

**WARNING:  
**References to rape, assault and other horrible things. You can't say I haven't warned you.

...

It's good to be back.

* * *

|** Part I : **Bloodline |

|** Chapter Two : **Arvyn Dren |

She is sick today.

Propped up against the bar, he watches her from across the room, gaze not-so-subtly locked on her hardly clad from. She, despite his staring however, does not notice. Nobody seems to, oddly enough - excluding the certain individuals watching _him_. There are three of them, sat in one corner of the room. He can feel their gazes drilling into his back as he takes another swig of the downright sheep's piss this tavern dares call alcohol. Mildly, it annoys him - not the alochol, though that is rather aggravating - but the fact that nobody bothers to notice. It's obvious, incredibly so.

That, and being in a room filled with loud, shouting older men is starting to give him a headache... but it's not about him. Not really. It's about her... _and_ the man who commonly associates with her.

Perhaps to anyone of average intelligence, it would not be obvious. The influenza - that bitch of a mutation that creeps under her skin like a repugnant parasite; it masks her drugged up haze, covering it. The other men here, now they would bring their eyes to look upon the blush across her nose and cheeks and - assuming they could even look at her face properly... these men are disgusting, that, he had decided early on - they would consider it as some form of idle embarrassment, or charm. Not the result of illness. Nor the work of a practising alchemist. He knows this partly because he's responsible, partly because he has trained himself to look for these signs and partly because he's a genius, so it's crystal fucking clear to him. The forms of animalistic attraction that these other men show is not worthy of comparison. If anything, he finds these subtle little signs more alluring then the simple anatomy of an Imperial female.

Suppressing a shudder as he takes another swig from the glass propped before him, the seventeen year old Junior Investigator, Aurelius Avis, rolls his eyes in distaste. He hates alcohol - he really does, but he needs to appear older, more developed. He may sit here in a Watchman's boots with an Imperial Legionnaire's belt, but he's still a boy.

Boys tend to stand out.

Aurelius observes her from across the bar. She has lost sight of her... follower, in the crowd. The result is intriguing to say the least. Looking over her shoulder, her fragile body twisting as frantic eyes scan the waves of people, her golden matted hair falls over her shoulders in a series of waves. She makes to wander towards one part of the tavern, between two tables and he becomes downright furious when he manages to lose sight of her, seemingly materialising into the collection of patrons. It does nothing for his headache - he despises loud noises too. If he knew his input would result in _this_ much bother he would have told Phillida to stuff it then and there.

That makes him laugh. It's a soft, reticent noise, but it's there nonetheless.

_How long will he keep telling himself that?_

Slamming his glass against the bartop, he glares impassively at the Argonian barmaid with a degree of muted aggression he as since become well known for. It's a lot harder in his semi-intoxicated state, but Aurelius must pull it off, because she mutters something about the behaviour of her patrons as she refiles his glass for what is now the fourth time this evening. In the far left corner of his peripheral vision, one of the three Watchmen shifts, the dull thunk of boots following shortly after. He's not supposed to get drunk, either on a normal day or otherwise, but considering it was Aurelius who got them this far in the first place, he feels inclined to do as he pleases.

Eventually, through frenzied searching, he does catch sight of her again. The Junior Investigator ignores his drink for the time being, moving backwards, very much determined not to lose her again. She's flinching and wincing now and Aurelius has observed that after forty seven minutes of this she should be nearing apparent unconsciousness. But, considering the erroneous factor of the other fellow, the illness and the semi-potent drug in her bloodstream, it could considerably less. Or more, perhaps. He's never had chance to test it before and results will defiantly vary depending on the health of the person, height and weight being of general consideration too. At any rate...

Only time will tell.

He would drastically prefer it if it happens sooner rather then later. The sooner she gets tired, the sooner the other fellow will pounce and Aurelius will observe, before moving in. Perhaps. It depends on who gets there first and with that thought, Aurelius turns to glare at the approaching Watchman, eyebrows slightly raised. The Watchman hesitates, looking back at his colleges. They are not used to not having anyone in charge. None of others really know what they are to do. Figures.

_Honestly_. Fools.

Ripping his gaze away from the Watchman and over towards the female, Aurelius retakes his glass as she lulls to an inevitable halt, a rock amongst the mass of large, shouting working men. Grumbling into his drink, idly considers the chances of an incorrect dosage - perhaps another factor, he hopes the little addition to her drink wouldn't finish her off too soon- not that he particularly cares. Because he _doesn't_. It's the other fellow he's after. It's the other fellow. This he reminds himself as he takes a long drink, fingers drumming against the bartop as he waits. Another glance shows that she's panicking. It's not very noticeable and even Aurelius has to double check, but there is no disguising the fear. He can see it in her eyes.

A few seconds afterwards and her ribcage and sternum heave up suddenly, then down again, beads of sweat glistening on the dimple dip of skin between her collarbones and he can plainly see now, somewhat through the creeping levels of rising alochol in his system, that she is defiantly panicking. She doesn't know what's going on, other then that something, intentional or otherwise, it is taking affect. A mild form of poison, to be precise. Enough to accelerate the symptoms of her illness, with the addition of a strong hypnotic to make it obvious, so much so, that it only takes a mere glance to realise that something is amiss - or in their case, that she's exhausted. It's a very powerful sedative, an anticonvulsant, something of a anxiolytic, an amnestic too, and a skeletal muscle relaxant drug. The Imperial City Watch has access to a wide range of interesting ingredients - for Aurelius, this is as much of an experiment as it is a sting operation.

There comes a casual, attention seeking cough and Aurelius feels the coolness of plate armour against his side. It seems that they realise that too, so he glares at the other beside him and they keep this exchange in hostile looks up until Aurelius looks back to the girl. The guardsman really doesn't have to say anything; Aurelius knows. He's had it drilled into his head.

Quite literally, as well as metaphorically. Phillida is quite the disciplinarian.

As the blood pounds through her veins, forcing, pushing out to flush her cheeks again with colour in ample violation, Aurelius narrows his eyes, shifting slightly and leaning both his elbows up against the bar. Subconsciously, he moves one hand up, pressing the palm against the base of his jugular. The grooved pad of his right thumb brushes against the smooth skin just above his left collarbone and he can faintly feel the tiny raised nick. Scar tissue. A remnant of a mishap with a knife back last year. Humming slightly under his breath, Aurelius takes his hand away and wraps it around the bottom of his glass instead. Three gulps in quick succession. It doesn't burn.

"Avis..." comes the half frustrated and, interestingly, half worried whisper from his side. The Watchman's right hand rests against his shoulder and this makes the Junior Investigator growl before pushing it away violently.

Aurelius hates being touched. He just can't stand it. He doesn't like people near him or around him or in general sight range, if he can possibly help it. People feel to much and are quick to just overwhelm him by just... well, _existing_, he supposes. When people get near he can feel their body heat and he can't help but notice all the flooding and flowing and twitching that makes them alive, and then he feels sick, because it's another heap of things to take in on top of a load of other things he has to watch out for - but when they touch him, it gets far worse. Pounding-migraine-rum-and-Colovian-brandy worse.

"Just watch." He commands, looking back to the girl and shifting over towards the very end of the barstool. As far away from the Watchman as he can get without actually going anywhere.

A few minutes pass and with a lop sided grin promising definite trouble, the _other fellow_ makes his way towards her. The bastard has probably noticed that she's getting wobbly, odd in behaviour, and if Aurelius has done this correctly - which he assumes he has, of course - he will assume she is drunk, or tired, or both. He says something to her, wrapping his arms around the exposed slip of skin around her waist and she says something back. It doesn't take long at any rate. No sooner then they've finished their conversation, she's moving up the stairs with him. Her look says it all; she's exhausted, she's scared. She doesn't want this. She's begging for someone, anyone to call her away and save her.

Luckily for her, there is a grand total of four members of the Imperial City Watch in shouting distance with an arrest warrant for her unconventional suitor.

"We need to move." Aurelius grunts, wincing. His words are starting to slur, now that the alochol has started making him dizzy and he braces both hands heavily against the bar, fingernails digging into the wood as he exhales.

Then someone, or at least Aurelius assumes that it's a someone, slams into his lower back. With a muted gasp and a firm look of full blown anger, because it's not _right_ - it's not what's supposed to fetching happen - the Junior Investigator kicks his leg out, creating some space between him and the person before spinning violently. He's just about to open his mouth to yell at them, but he's suddenly interrupted when she - and she is a she, the realisation hits pretty damn quickly - propels herself off the barstool in a series of sloppy drunken movements and sodding _lands_ on him.

"C'mon handsome." Her tone is far too sharp, a series of uncomfortable notes that ring in his ear canal and Aurelius backs into the bar again, jerking his head away and setting his jaw. "You look like you need some downtime."

The Watchman sat beside him peels himself slowly from his own barstool and makes to move towards them, but he's grinning - clearly enjoying the turn of events. "I couldn't..." she manages to slide hand around his waist, despite his rather obvious protesting. "Don't... get off." her inability to do so sends Aurelius into something vaguely resembling rage and he scowls, looking downwards he takes in the woman pressing him up against the bar, lip curling with every little observation. She's trashed, completely and utterly trashed and she smells of something sickly, her accent is butchered, she's young - older then him, but young - and seems to generally enjoy this.

Aurelius doesn't though. Not in the slightest.

At any rate, she's nothing but a giggling little common labour's girl and, if she's not careful, a giggling labour's girl who's about to get raped and dumped in an alleyway. He's not in the mood.

So, with a hefty thump to the upper abdomen, he makes her stagger backwards. People look towards him, most of them amused, a few of them disgusted and Aurelius scowls as he passes. She says something then, makes to move again.

"Tell me, Eustis... do you always give criminals the same massive fuck off chance of escape?" Aurelius barks towards the Watchman closest and waves a hand at him when the man splutters something in reply. He doesn't want to hear it. He doesn't care... but he'd he wouldn't be surprised if the answer was indeed, 'yes'. Intolerably stupid, these lot. "We need to go, _now_."

With this at least, the guards suddenly move into action, probably realising just why they were here in the sodding first place. Aurelius rolls his sleeves up, gaze flicking over towards the opposite side of the room. It's time. The Woman blanches when she realises the armoured Imperial Watchman around her and when she looks at him, her gaze locks on the insignia stamped into his belt. She doesn't do anything after that, letting him pass. Aurelius gives her a cool look as he passes before taking a tiny, gasping intake of breath as he moves over towards the staircase into the upper rooms, but intoxication is taking hold and in his head it echoes and slams against his skull, like rage, like blood-lust.

It's confusing, because he's not angry, well, not completely. He's been angrier - he's frustrated if anything. It all seems amplified.

Drinking, it seems, was a bad idea.

When he gets to them, Aurelius realises that the stairs are going to be the most difficult. When he climbs onto the first step, his knees feel heavier then before and his brow lowers as he brings them up again. His feet land awkwardly every time, uneven footfall thumping loudly. It makes his head hurt.

He gets close to the top when one of the Watchmen wrenched him up, large hands grabbing under his arms and shaking him roughly. "Wake up." the older man grumbles, eyes flashing towards the guard who was following behind, a mixture of worry and annoyance. The man has every right to be, Phillida told them to keep an eye on him after all. "They're in one of the rooms down there - how do we know which one they went in without breaking cover?"

Rolling his head forwards, Aurelius snarls and shoves the guard away with still developing strength. The corridor before him is swaying slightly and he runs a hand over his hair. The guard makes to say something again, but a wave of the hand shuts him up instantly and the Investigator moves along it slowly, taking in each doorway. He's slow, because he'll surely end up on his arse if he goes any faster and he staggers to a halt when he picks up on a series of noises. Raising his head slowly, Aurelius frowns and then turns towards the guards, who just stare back at him uncertainly. They are unsure of what to do, a lot of them aren't much older then Aurelius and last time they rushed it, it did not go well in the slightest.

Raising a hand hesitatingly, the Investigator moves forwards towards the door first. Though when he gets within arms reach of the handle, he pauses, his head cocking towards the left suddenly as he things something over. He hadn't intended for it, because his brain slams to an unnerving halt and he moves his hand down to rest against his sword.

It doesn't take him long to add it all up and as soon as he does, Aurelius snarls, slamming his booted foot into the door with as much force as he can actually muster. One of the hinges blows loudly, ripping free from the wooden doorframe and sending one of the nails across the room. It flies into the window, into the glass, a spider-web crack forming around it. The Dark Elf in the room suddenly shouts in surprise and when he steps inside, Aurelius perceivers the scene before him with a dulled calculation. The snarl curls into a sneer and he eyes the criminal before him coolly.

"Arvyn Dren..." Aurelius calls, but his voice feels wrong, weird, like he's taking from far away instead. Blinking, he slams the heel of his palm into his forehead in irritation, glaring at the man anew. Not just Dren, really. "You make me fucking _sick_."

It's the truth, in some respect - but the term feels odd on his tongue. It suggests that he's in some way shocked, but Aurelius isn't, per say. He's not exactly swayed by the sight before him, even if what little culture he's picked up on in the past year and a half suggests that it's disgusting, despicable, horrible. To him, all of this is just a bunch of facts rolled into one scene. He's got the grounds to arrest the Dumner now and this is something that Dren seems to realise too, because he jumps away from the girl, panic stricken. It leaves the girl left pushed over the desk, bent forwards, the trails of tears running down her face. She stares at Aurelius like he's not really there.

That does it for him.

If she was any other girl, perhaps he would have kept his cool - remained indifferent. Or perhaps it's because his wasted. Either way, during the split seconds that they lock gazes, he realises that her beauty was pretty heartbreaking to see up close. She was everything he wasn't and she reminded him too much of his Momma. His Momma had the same golden hair.

All things considered...

Dren's nose makes a satisfying sonorous crunch as Aurelius slams it hard into the wood of the desk and then, for emphasis, the Investigator grabs a handful of the Dumner's hair and grins his hand into the back of his skull for good measure. He's not allowed to kill Dren, of course, but Aurelius knows he can get away with a little mark here and there. The asshole isn't about to get any compensation for it, nor is he pity. Mass-raping Skooma smugglers hardly do. Crying out in pain, and outrage, Dren manages to twist himself around, clawing at Aurelius' face as he pulls him up. The alcohol has done a serious number on his reaction times, so the Investigator just grimaces, rearing backwards and slamming into the wall in an attempt to get hold of the situation.

The sounds coming from the room must be something of a definite warning sign, because Aurelius can't do much soon afterwards. Hands grab hold of his upper shoulders and he's paused aside by the guards. They take over and he doesn't complain, pressing a tentative hand towards the scratch running across his forehead. His fingertips come away bloody and at the sight of it, Aurelius merely grunts in acknowledgement.

In fact, the whole thing leaves him somewhat... well, stunned.

The alochol really is taking it's toll.

"By the Nine..."

Eyes flashing towards the guard who spoke, Aurelius raises both his eyebrows, then looks towards at the rest of the room, at the evidence.

"You were right." The guard looks at Aurelius, disbelief colouring his features as he looks the scene over.

Aurelius just grumps.

"Course' m'right. I'm always fuckin' right"

The girl has moved away from the desk and she's leant up against the broken window. She's not the only girl either; there's another three huddled into one corner of the room, watching the events before them, eyes wide and silent. Another girl, the fifth, is pushed up against the bed frame, her head lolling against her chest and although he's drunk off his skull - Aurelius knows something is defiantly wrong. He goes wandering up slowly, grabbing her chin when he gets within arm's reach.

Nothing.

The blonde girl, his original target, screams when he sees him do it. He doesn't let go, even when she throws herself against him, protest in the form of flailing arms and weak thumps. "Let go of her!" she roars thickly through a river of snot, tears and - unexpectedly - blood, through a thick curtain of hair however she realises through her groggy stupor that Aurelius isn't Dren and she pauses.

Looking towards the girl on the bed, Aurelius frowns. "She needs a healer." he looks towards the guardsmen, who just nods.

"One'll be up with the Captain soon."

The blonde girl is still looking at him and Aurelius blinks, eyes narrowing. "Yeah, I know m'gorgeous."

Avis turns to look at the girl who has since moved away from the desk and is stood near the window, then at the guard who spoke. He's looking back at the rest of the room, at the evidence.

"Good." He replies slowly, but he's too drunk to do much else, so he makes a wide gesture with his free arm. The guard stares at him perplexed until he realises that the gesture was actually supposed to be indication to take over.

"Wow, Avis." He breathes as he passes and because he's fairly certain that Aurelius won't be able to stand for much longer, he grabs both his upper arms and pushes him into the beside table. "Just, stay there. Keep hold of that." Despite everything, he's clearly amused. Some traitorous us part of Aurelius' brain doesn't blame them. After all, to see the high functioning sado-masochist asshole off his head on alochol must be a sight in a half.

For a good hour and a half, he watches them as they go on with their business. They tend to the girls, to the girl he had drugged, to Dren. It's all rather organised, practiced and Aurelius finds himself with little to do as a direct result. It's this feeling of purposeless that gives him the idea of leaving and some stupid part of his brain decides that, actually, that's a good idea. So he mutters something to one of the guards on the way out, feeling inclined to struggle down the corridor, then to fall half way down half a set of stairs to wind up thundering out the back door.

An amasing coolness greets him as he steps outside onto the wet cobbles. The air smells of the docks, the lake, fresh rainfall and a small slither of light from a small nearby lantern reflects against the metal of his boots. Aside from the small glow, everything else is pretty much cast into darkness. There are little, if any, lanterns around here and as he walks, Aurelius coughs, then heaves, gag reflex spluttering something onto the collar of his shirt. He wipes his mouth, disgusted.

In his drunken state, the Waterfront district seemed much larger then it was before. He started to feel a little sick after a few moments, worry building up somewhere in the back of his mind. When he finds one of the East Empire Trading Company warehouses along the southern end of the district, he was pretty thrilled. Though his relief is pretty much quashed instantly when something cool and sharp presses against the back of his neck. He hadn't heard the footsteps, nor did he the shuffle of clothes. He does realise the danger however, so he spins to suddenly finds himself face to face with a scrap of a poor man - but not just any lower class delinquent - but the idiot who first tried to mug him for his pocketwatch a year and a half ago. Rags cover he majority of his torso and through crooked teeth, he demands everything on Aurelius' person.

Because he's too far gone, Aurelius doesn't immediately react. Idly, he looks behind him, then at the mugger, brow lowering in intoxicated bafflement. The mugger however is not impressed and he rips the blade away to smash his knuckles deep into the Investigator's lower gut. When he doubles over, everything pretty much comes back to him.

He's never getting this wasted, never again if he can help it. Or at least until he can get a better grip on things. It's just one thing after another, really. Gods.

"Hey! Step away and drop the weapon -"

The mugger turns, surprised and now that Aurelius is behind him, he takes the man in from a different angle. He's not much of a man - he's younger then Aurelius. He's taller, very much so, but he's also quite handsome too, if you took away the skin defects and evidence of poor breeding. He could have been someone.

Pity.

Aurelius inhales, before snapping the mugger's neck with his bare hands. The vertebrate snaps, shuddering with a gutter and a creak and the boy slumps against the cobbles with a dull thud. From above him, the Investigator watches dispassionately, giving the body a shove with the tip of his boot. He doesn't appreciate being mugged.

"Avis!"

He recognises the voice, so much so that he jerks around in order to face the direction it came from. Running one hand through his hair, Aurelius half grimaces when Adamus Phillida comes thundering towards him, all high and mighty in his shining captain's armour, clanking loudly with every armour clad footstep. He half expects the man to stop, but of course, Phillida doesn't and Aurelius suddenly finds himself being half flung half pushed across the road and into a wall. Again.

This really isn't a good day; he's getting tossed around way more then he should.

"-hat happend?!"

"Mhn, hada'nife." he mumbles, waving his hand at the dead lump of rags and skin disease on the cobbled floor. "Y'seen Dren'yt?"

Realising just how drunk Aurelius is gives Phillida a pause. He's seen a lot in his forty or so years in the Imperial Watch, but he has never seen a drunken Investigator, in the middle of a sting operation, no less. Looking down at the corpse, squinting through the darkness, the Captain then eyes Aurelius, distrusting. "Did you kill him?" he asks, slowly, because Aurelius seems to lose a lot of his intelligence when he's drunk, it seems.

"Didn't mean, jus'happend 'hat way." the younger man says, dumbly, slamming into Phillida's chestplate in order to steady himself. At least it's not a fetching wall. Wisely, the Captain says nothing about it. "Hada' knife, Sir."

"As you said."

"Nhnn, self..._fetching_defence."

"Sir?" comes a shout from further down the road and Phillida looks over his shoulder.

He shouts, waving a hand at the half collapsed Aurelius below him. "Found him."

"Shutupph, fuckss'sake!"

Much to his drunken surprise, Phillida laughs. "You heard the man, is Dren accounted for?"

"Yes Sir."

Suddenly frustrated, Aurelius half growls half snorts and when he moves back, he just manages to avoid chucking up the alochol and this morning's breakfast allover his superior's boots. This time, Phillida is less amused, but he doesn't say anything to suggest so. Just stands firm, staring angrily. It's not that he can just give an order to make the younger man cut it out after all.

At least he caught Dren... even if it did involve butchering every single protocol beforehand.

"Charming." his superior hisses, grabbing hold of the back of Aurelius' collar and wrenching him upwards. He's somewhat surprised when the boy doesn't start instantly thrashing and swearing, as what usually happens when someone grabs him, but he hides it soon afterwards, speaking casually. "Well, your the one who's going to be filling out the paperwork tomorrow, son."

Aurelius stares at him for a moment, eyes squinting in the half-light. "You're fuckin' mean." He eventually concludes, reproachful. He's more of a boy then a guardsmen at this point, and because, _technically_, Avis is still in what they consider training, Phillida can't do much more then just scold him for it. Well, hand Phillida an apron and call him a housewife - it's going to be nothing but boot polishing and early bedtimes for the so called genius now.

This, is going to cause a lot of headaches. For both of them, Phillida supposes.

"Adaaaaaaaaaaamus!" Avis wails suddenly and the momentary peace pops with a sad little squeak because his is voice raised in that trademark idiocy of all drunken people where they all spontaneously assume that everyone in the world has gone stone cold deaf. "Evidence!" he barks, violently pushing himself away in sudden urgency, Phillida just grabs his upper shoulder in order to keep him steady.

"I don't think so."

"The fuck not?!" with half bloodied hands clenched and his shoulders squared. He'd look pretty intimating, granted...

But considering how he's facing a competently different direction, and he's swaying constantly, Phillida just roll his eyes. He thinks he's a tough customer. How cute. Smacking him hard over the head, the Watch Captain grabs hold of a hand full of the strands and jerks the boy's head up so they relativity nose to nose, glaring all the way.

"You. Dearest, darling, most favourite not-quite-officer in the world ever, are shit faced. That's why."

Aurelius would look vaguely surprised, if he had any idea how, so he just sneers.

"You're-" His insult is completely interrupted as he turns around again to empty his stomach. Phillida feels one of his eyes twitch and a couple of the guards grin from their positions. This is going to be some impressive blackmail material.

Yeah, boot cleaning and early nights. Defiantly.


	5. PI - CIII : Early Execution

**-[| The Principles of Reasoning Deduction |]-**

* * *

**Author's Note :** Ignore the re-upload, just had to fix a few crucial errors.

* * *

|** Part I : **Bloodline |

|** Chapter Three : **Early Execution |

It was sunrise when Captain Adamus Phillida took the walk towards the western bank of Lake Rumare. As he looked across the still water, at the cluster of trees that marked the edge of the Great Forest, he couldn't help but think back to his days as a footman, out patrolling the Red Ring Road. It was all very nostalgic, but Phillida was no longer a footman, nor was he going to travel along that particular road. Not today. No, today he was venturing towards a suspicious death.

When he reached the small hamlet of Weye, he cut north across the scrappy bank and in the direction of the water's edge, his heavy armoured form sinking a few inches into the mud, towards the group of Imperial Watchmen who located themselves just beside an empty rowing boat and what was presumably the man of the hour; a crumpled form lay presented on the beach. Even at this time there wasn't a lot of light, so Phillida could only identify them as vague black shapes. The crime scene was no more than half a mile away from the hamlet itself, which stood just before the bridge towards the Imperial City. The only way to get to the body, he had been told when he was awoken, was to either cut across the muddy bank, an unkempt section of grass with weeds as tall as your waist, or to simply find a way to get across the water.

To Adamus, it seemed like a long walk, especially with the rain and wind whipping against his armoured form. He's getting to old for this, he realises with a small passive grunt.

Weye was home to only two dwellings, but the main one of interest stood to the right of the road, just after the bridge ended; a small, rectangular cottage a stone's throw away from the lake. The other building was an inn, usually favoured by travelling footmen on their breaks, or traders waiting for market day. The small population meant no onlookers, to which Phillida was quite unused to - most 'murders' of a suspicious nature tended to take place within the city walls.

In fact, the only people around was a group of five or so stern looking Watchmen, two of which who made some form of wall, standing a set distance apart with their arms folded. He nodded towards the one closest to him, who returned the gesture respectfully. "Might want to hurry along, sir." the Watchman states, tipping his head up meekly to examine the sky above him. "Prolly' going to start chucking it down soon, knowing our luck. Civello is ready and waiting to fill you in." looking along the bank, Phillida nods - he can hear the man from here.

"Anything happen since we found the body?" Phillida gives the area another look around, aside from the presence of the Imperial Watch, it's deserted. "Onlookers, suspicious folk?"

The Watchman gives him a humoured look. "Nothing aside from the occasional drizzle. Not many people're out walking this early, Sir."

Phillida nods, walking further along to stand beside his subordinate and intimidate successor, Giovanni Civello, who is as immaculate as ever and one of the other Watchmen who Phillida did not know the name of. They're all armoured, with raindrops still clinging to the plate. One of them continues to examine the area and another fellow was out examining the boat. Stepping forwards slightly, Phillida eyes the crumpled body of an emaciated old man wearing the typical fisherman's waders. The fellow was lying on his back, with his neck bent at an impossible angle, one arm bent in the opposite way to which it should have been, and a sharp knife of bone protruded through the fabric of his waders on his inner right thigh. Painful wounds indeed. His clothes and hair were wet with rain, soaked to the skin and Phillida wondered how long he'd actually been here.

"What happened here then, Civello?" Phillida says to the man in question, who half turns to his officer with a small frown.

"Fellow fisherman found the body early this morning, Sir. Or rather, he found the boat - then the body when he came to get a closer look. Devan Rodane, the man who found him. He knows one of the officers personally, went straight to his house and the Watchman followed him up here. He went and reported it in right after." Civello states, gruffly almost, folding his arms and staring at the body.

"Where's the man now?"

"One of the Watchman took him back to his house, bit of a state."

Phillida turns towards the body. He can believe it. "I'm not surprised, who was he?"

"I'd have expected you to observe the fact that this man is also part of the, as of currently closed, Dren investigation, Civello." a voice from behind Phillida buts in unexpectedly. "The man is Aelwin Merowald, Adamus. He's the father of Aurei Merowald, you know, that blonde whore who we questioned. Aren't you supposed to be the sort of person who picks up on these details? I thought you were supposed to harbour a moderate amount of intelligence."

Both of them turn their heads to see the Junior Investigator, Aurelius Avis, walking towards them, studying them appraisingly as he walks past, he stops just short of Phillida's elbow. He doesn't look very impressed (not that he ever does, the negative little git) and his amber eyes narrow as he ticks his head towards the corpse for emphasis. Unlike the lot of the Watchmen here, the boy remains unarmoured. Guess it's for the best; he can walk around with sinking.

In response to his remark, Civello makes a noise. "I did observe who the man was _and_ how he was related to your investigation, Avis. You are here, are you not?"

Aurelius smirks at him and it's clear he has a resort ready when Phillida jams a gloved finger into his shoulder. It shuts him up before he can even start. "Don't start, _either_ of you." the Captain cuts in, and then adds, as if an afterthought. "And be polite, Aurelius. This is what I keep on telling you about."

The boy just grumps, clearly not very happy about the idea of his fun being spoiled. "He's a local, obviously, lived in that backwater little hut near the water's edge. Did some digging while I was at the University, he sold scales to the alchemists there. Planning on retirement I'll wager."

Phillida snaps his head towards him, eyebrows raised beneath his helmet. "What where you doing in the University?"

"Does it matter?" Aurelius deflects, coolly, giving him a glance as he slowly moves towards body. "Looks like I'm going to have a field day with you, Monsieur." he says to it as he examines the area slowly, moving around in an arc of sorts, turning on his heels.

Civello snorts. "You really have a way with the corpses, don't you?"

"You seem jealous. Care to join him?"

"_Gentlemen_." Phillida warns, eyeing Civello with a faint frown. Aurelius snickers. "What did you know about him?

Civello claps his hands behind his back, all business. "We don't know a great deal about him, Sir. He wasn't much of a mixer - a widow, we believe. Kept himself to himself. Bit of an odd duck too, or so the local innkeeper thought. Reclusive. Never really got out much. The only definite thing we have on him at the moment is that he was a fisherman and that he had a daughter."

Aurelius meanwhile moves over towards the body slowly, examining its layout, the condition, among several other little details that are nothing but imperative. He crouches by the corpse's head, wrenching his chin up to stare at the Watchman hovering uncertainly a few feet away. "You said you found him like this morning?" he asks, examining the breath of the corpse's torso for a second time.

"About that. My guess is he's been here all night."

Aurelius snorts. "He has."

Frowning, he shifts further towards the left so he's line in line with the corpse's ribcage. Examining his forearm, he brings a pale hand out cautiously, lifting the sleeve up to expose a series of purple, bloated bruises. Humming thoughtfully under his breath, he then goes to grab the man's right hand, examining his fingernails. Nothing under his nails and, he realises after he examines the other hand, the man wasn't a nail biter either. Suggests that there was little to no struggle. Paralysis perhaps.

As for the bruises...

"Help me get his shirt off."

"Sir?"

"I need to see the extent of his injures. Hurry up."

When it finally comes off with the aid of a knife and a lot of tugging, Aurelius stands over the corpse, arms folded and expression scrunched up. It's not a pretty sight. Not that these things ever are. It captures Aurelius' attention in a manner he doesn't quite like - it's all very cornering, for a Law bringing point of reference. The father of a key suspect in one of the biggest human trafficking and smuggling case in the past decade and he turns up dea- _No_. Not just dead - murdered. Subject to torture. He can see the evidence. It doesn't bode well, not at all. Aurelius twigs it up pretty quickly; someone wanted to get information out of this fellow.

But _why_?

Aurelius rubs the left hand side of his jaw. Now that, is the question he should be considering.

Still, it's better to take everything one step at a time. Gather all the details.

The man's body is covered in a series of gruesome purple bruises - the same kind he saw on his arm. Aurelius ticks his head to the left as he examines them. Deep muscular. Impressive amount of force behind the punches. He crouches down against to feel the man's ribs, the ones that are under the most serve bruises. Most of them are broken, a few cracked. His eyes narrow as he spies the long, delicate cuts along the man's front. For a few moments they look quite random; the work of someone hacking and slashing with little care, but the glide of the cuts is not appropriate to such brutality. How can you cut someone randomly and have a perfect arc?

It's deliberate. It has to be.

Also, he realises as he continues to examine the cuts, there was two people inflicting the damage. Not one.

"Aurelius is handling the next of kin issue, I assume?"

Grunting impassively, Aurelius flicks his gaze up to eye Phillida, fixing the man with a particularly stern look. "She's no longer a witness, she's a suspect. I had a warrant sent out for questioning - she decided to go and pull a vanishing act, packed a few things and took off during the night." he's displeased when he says it, and rightfully so. Clearly that woman had more to her then a vulnerable outlook. They managed to undervalue her and she took advantage of it.

Aurelius hardens his jaw. He won't underestimate her again. Criminals are liars and she, was a very good actor indeed.

"None of her protective guard noticed?" Phillida raises his eyebrows. He's trying to come across as unfazed, perhaps in some form of patronising fashion, but Aurelius notes the way his mouth slightly opens. His eyes widen too, though for a very short and seemingly unnoticeable time. He's surprised.

"A few hours ago, I was asking that very same question. Regardless of how she pulled it off however, it's defiantly got something to do with her, it's as I expected." he steps away, standing upright and giving the corpse another once over. "Subject to torture, this one. Someone wanted to get _something_ out of him. They've gone to a lot of trouble to do so."

Civello frowns. "How'd you mean?"

Of course. Stupid fool wouldn't be able to figure out a suicide case.

Aurelius sighs, giving him a suffering look before explaining. Seriously, it's not that hard. "Anybody who is trained in the acts of torture knows it's about technique, rather than force. This poor bastard could have served better as a punching bag." he bends down again, looking at the corpse closer up. It makes him scowl. He'll need to examine the back - slightly difference in tissue is likely to show different results. Pulling the corpse up, he adjusts his stance before flipping the body over onto its front. Then he notices it, just below the neck. An incision. Slightly left of the vertebrate. Minor discolouration. Profound bruising around it - it would look like a bruise, perhaps. But Aurelius realises.

After all. Why in Oblivion would anyone punch someone there? There's not a lot to damage but if you did, the results would be catastrophic.

Simple. They're hiding it. It's not just any incision; it's an orifice for the poison to enter the bloodstream. Aurelius smirks. This is going to be a very interesting case indeed. Much more amusing then the reverse pickpocketing experiments he had planned for today.

"He's been poisoned." he says, dully. "Judging by the knife work and then the pattern of the bruising, they went to the trouble to hide it afterwards, make it look like a robbery."

Speaking of catastrophic...

He eyes the man's neck for a second time, moving forwards to have a feel of the vertebrate. Broken. A broken neck. That's bruises, cuts, a poisoned incision added to the fairly obvious fractured leg. Broken wrist. Broken thumb and ring finger on his left hand. That's a lot for one man, an old, sick man no less, to have to endure.

Phillida looks at him strangely. Aurelius ignores it. "Why would anyone want to torture him of all people?"

He shrugs, he thinks it would be pretty obvious by now. "Either it's about his daughter, or his daughter's acquaintance. I don't think it a coincidence that this fellow turns up the morning Dren is about to be executed." there is a long period of silence and Aurelius folds his arms. He's not impressed. Gods. How they managed clear an investigation before he arrived, he has no idea. "Oh come on!" he spits, shocked that no one shares his insight. "It's so obvious! Please, tell me what it's like to be so intolerably _ignorant_."

"Aurelius." Phillida warns, but then, he presses his lips into a thin line. "Any idea of what we are dealing with?"

He sighs, deflating so hard it actually hurts. "From what I can tell, judging by the close proximity to the home, the injures and the lack of splattering, he wasn't killed here - but I haven't had the chance to examine him properly yet. I'll be able to give you a far more accurate answer later. As for the moment, the bottoms of his trousers are caked in gravel, the same kind near the bridge that leads into Weye, so I'd assume he's been dragged here. Living or otherwise-" he turns towards one of the Watchmen. "Do me a favour, go to Weye and check the ground for any signs of major disturbance." with that, he turns back to Phillida, face scrunched up. "The wound on his back was relatively shallow, but it's discoloured - it'd look like a bruise if the person studying it was as _dense_ as a _flat wedg_e. Aside from that, he's got a broken neck, among several other bones. Lost a lot of blood from the leg. Fractured and judging by the damage, a blow with a heavy flat object was the cause of that particular injury." he stares forwards at the landscape before him for a few moments, thinking. "He was beaten in a very unfortunate manner, the broken neck and fractured thigh probably did it for him. Artery is severed there. He bled out. Would have been quick if it's any reassurance to you all - the poison may have paralysed him by then, if the broken neck hadn't."

"All caused by the same person?"

Aurelius smirks.

"No."

Phillida folds his arms. "Committing yourself, Avis?"

Aurelius gives him an incredibly flat look. "I only commit myself when I'm definite." moving down towards the corpse, he points to the gruesome pattern of bruises and cuts. Then towards a slightly purpled one. "The knife-work here compared to the rest of the handiwork is different."

"Define different."

"No two people inflect damage the same, we vary in size, in strength and weight. If we were both to hit Civello in the face -" Civello gives him a glare for _that_ example. "- the resulting damage would be different. Even if you had two equally skilled individuals using the same technique, there are still differences; you'd have to be exactly the same. The cuts here are deliberate, in the sense that the person inflicting them is being light handed on purpose. The glide of the knife is angled towards the left ever so slightly - indication that the individual is also left handed, with a very small hand-span. The beatings however are deep muscular, whoever started beating him afterwards is a big fellow, capable of a lot of force and I can tell for a fact that the hand-span is much larger in comparison. It's the knife-work that is more relevant however, I've seen work of a similar degree before, though not with poisons." he shakes his head. He doesn't want to think about her. Not anymore. "It's not a robbery, that much I can tell you at the time being. You don't poison someone, keep them alive and then beat them unless you have a reason."

"Could be a whack job." Civello suggests and for once, Aurelius nods his head.

It could be. If he can arrest a religious cannibal with a fine hankering for thumbs - he can accept a story about a two people who rob people then beat them in a very time consuming, particular fashion.

But Aurelius knows better than that. Something else is going on and it seems that Phillida knows to.

"Civello, get the body out of here. Set up shop back at the headquarters. Aurelius, you're with me - we need to examine the man's home."

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**-[| The Principles of Reasoning Deduction |]-**

* * *

Aelwin Merowald's home was a lower class affair, cramped and built with materials that were likely to deteriorate rapidly in a few years. It's not much bigger then Aurelius' own quarters and stands a good few hundred metres away from the main road that joins the Red Ring. Far enough to not be concerned by the constant traffic going into the City, close enough to make it a short distance to walk. The small strip of garden that sat under the window by the door had been given over to the growing of herbs. Aurelius gives them a small glance as he walks by, recognising the various plants. It's very well-tended - which is slightly unusual. Merowald did not look like a man that could go herb tending whenever he pleased; age was catching up to him.

Aurelius and Phillida entered the home quietly, feeling a small amount of relief in getting out of the wind and rain. Chances are they'd only have a small amount of time to have a quick search of the house. Phillida has a lot of other responsibilities and it's likely that Aurelius would be needed elsewhere. It's only been a few weeks since the sting operation on Dren, but he's been making something of a name for himself since. Few people like Aurelius, even fewer will openly admit that they need his help, but at the end of the day; he's good. Very good.

"Did we interrupt you this morning, Avis?" Phillida asks as he pulls back a dusted curtain to let more light into the house. Turning away to avoid inhaling it, Aurelius examines the small illuminated home. There's just enough space for a hearth, a small table, a bed, a well-worn armchair and a chest before the foot of the bed.

Humming thoughtfully under his breath, Aurelius gives him a glance before working on examining the area around him. "Just finished a homicide."

"For who?"

"Lex."

"Ah. How did it go?"

"There's a stack of reports on it waiting for you." nose wrinkling, the Junior Investigator frowns as he moves over to one end of the house. Half stooped down, he grimaces. "You smell that?"

"Smell what?" Phillida frowns at him. "I don't smell anything."

"Faint smell of Columbine..." Aurelius makes another face and turns to look down at his feet, shuffling back somewhat and grimacing. "If he was killed here, there'd be blood stains. Columbine is used in complex potions that help with the casting of chameleon spells. It's also this property that makes them... remarkable for removing stains. It's usually far more potent than this, but it's obviously been mixed with other things. Gall perhaps."

Phillida gives Aurelius a thoughtful look. "If they went to clean up any evidence, that's a very clever way to go about it."

"We're not looking for an average enforcer here." Aurelius replies. "Whoever did this is a professional. I mean grade A full on assassin professional."

"Dark Brotherhood?"

Aurelius makes a noise. "Why, though? That lot don't kill people at a whim, it's bad for business. They have a target and that's that."

"Perhaps they didn't mean to kill Merowald. Like you said, he was tortured beforehand." Phillida folds his arms as he examines the rest of the room. "He was old, very old, if he was sick or frail they might have overdone it. It's a common trend, people get paid to rough another person up and they get a little too involved. Wind up with a dead body on their hands. You know that."

"Of course." Aurelius half snarls, tipping his head back slightly and scowling.

"I've been on the Brotherhood's case for years, it's happened before. A lot of the Brotherhood isn't massively skilled, they're good, but people make mistakes."

The younger man stares at him for a few moments. Aurelius might be smart, but Phillida knows this is one thing the boy isn't likely to excel at. He's intelligent, granted - incredibly perceptive and a damn good investigator, but he's also young. Too young. He won't have the necessary experience to directly understand the claims that Phillida makes. Still, it's not an issue in the long run. Young and green he may be, Aurelius is an adept learner and the Captain doesn't think it long before he starts catching up. In more ways than one, he realises with a grunt as Aurelius walks past him and observes that the prat has sprouted another few centimetres since the Dren incident. Sadly, his ego is developing hand in hand with his size. If earlier was any damn indication.

The chilly room smelled of stale smoke, as if it hadn't been aired in a while and a layer of dust seemed to cover everything and the faint chill makes Phillida grimace. "This reminds me of a case we had last year." Aurelius makes to roll his eyes, but doesn't stop the older man in his storytelling. "We had a tip off that a family was being targeted by thieves, so we go and make sure that they're nice and safe, every day, for about a week. Then one day the mother's sister comes into the city for a visit and before we can get to her, we find her beaten - half gone by the time we managed to get her to a healer. When she was talking again, we found out they had gone asking questions. Gruesome stuff. Lex got them in the end- wait, what? What is it?"

Aurelius is looking at him with a very odd expression on his face.

"Say that end bit again."

"Wha-"

The boy moves forwards, standing a strict few metres away, staring Phillida in the face. "Repeat the story."

He has no idea how this is relevant, but he decides to humour the prat. Sighing, he recites the story. "A family was being targeted, we were protecting them-"

"The thieves couldn't get to the family members."

"That's right."

"But they could get to aunt..." Aurelius snaps his fingers suddenly, the sound is sharp and it echoes faintly. "Was the daughter informed of when Dren was to be executed?"

Phillida grunts. "Not that I'm aware, but I never questioned her in person, Civello did."

"Civello is a trained snake charmer; he butters them up before he questions them. its how he gets reliable answers." Aurelius starts clicking his fingers more frequently, a habit that only occurs when he's deep in thought and thinking of something particularly significant. It's one of the few outward signs that he's on roll. "He might have told her when he was to be executed."

"He shouldn't have done." Phillida frowns. "It was kept under the hat for a reason."

"What are the odds, that a couple of assassins wanted to go and kill Dren, but didn't know where he was or when he was going to hang?"

Phillida stares at Aurelius for a good long time. "Dren had a lot of enemies, and I mean a lot. Half of the Waterfront wanted to stick a knife in his back. It's not that implausible."

Aurelius follows on, jaw set, but his gaze is alive with a certain flair. "Assassins go after his daughter to get information, but she goes and vanishes, so they go to the one person she may have told in confidence..."

Aurelius doesn't continue, just barges out the house and towards the Imperial City in a full on sprint.

* * *

**-[| The Principles of Reasoning Deduction |]-**

* * *

It's too late.

Skidding to a violent halt, Aurelius' expression drops as he surveys the scene before him with varying degrees of speed. Somewhere above him, the door to the prison block slams open and he can just about hear Phillida shouting. A warning. His name. Twice. Aurelius however doesn't reply, he can't. The only thing he actually manages to pull off is the slight movement of his hands, fingers feeling cold and numb as he suddenly runs them through his hair.

His name sounds again; this time is less furious and more concerned. He'd be bemused in any other scenario, but now... not now. By the Gods... not now.

Again, he doesn't reply. In fact, Aurelius finally understands what the term 'Mind ground to a halt' means, because as of right now, all forms of coherent judgement are completely fried by the image of Dren sat there on his chair, crimson river spilling through the cracks in the cobbles under his chair, head wrenched back...

Throat slit with a left handed cut.

"_Shit_."

Aurelius stumbles backwards towards against the wall and slides down harshly, boots slipping against the cobbles as he lands heavily on his backside. His hands are still in his hair.

"Aurelius...?"

This can't be a coincidence.

"Aureli-... oh Gods... Don't tell me..."

He turns, wordlessly towards Phillida and blinks.

"Dead."

Sometimes, he really fucking hates it when he's right.


End file.
